It always starts with an interest, a curiosity, or a passion for the digital arts. Students may be fascinated by a particular art form and curious how they’re made, or they may be inspired to jump in a start creating their own original stories and artworks.
Caleb started his digital art exploration in our Video Game Design 101 course eleven years ago. After becoming one of our amazing Student National Mentors, and then a Student National Fellow, Caleb went on to excel in the Digital Animation Program at CSU Fullerton and was one of 30 out of 10,000 worldwide applicants selected for Nickelodeon’s prestigious Digital Animation Studios internship. Caleb is now a Team Leader with Sony’s PlayStation Division.
This semester, like so many YDACS.com students before her, fourth grader Anaiya enrolled in Digital Manga 101, DM101, along with the assistance of her Grandmother Lita who learned as much, and ended up loving DM101 as much, as Anaiya.
When Anaiya just completed DM101 she said:
“DM101 is such a great course for kids because it pushes them to limits and lets them be as creative as can be. Also, I enjoyed the videos they were very helpful and short like 15 minutes and under! I really liked the color wheel ( it has every color you can THINK of ). Next, I learned about opacity which makes objects look transparent. Last, I also like layering, putting objects behind other objects. Thank you, Anaiya”
Evelyn is a Junior in high school and one of our amazing Student National Mentors. She was just like Anaiya when she took DM101 in 7th grade, When she finished DM101 she said:
“I really enjoyed Digital Manga 101. Although I did find it fun to learn techniques in the chapter videos, my favorite part was definitely creating my own characters in Inkscape! It was interesting and useful to know how to make drawings look excellent through slight tweaking. Thanks to the mathematics of Vector Graphics, I enjoyed my first Inkscape experience because I could move and change images easily and quickly. I am glad that I learned how to make some really creative works on the computer and I hope to use these skills in later years.
Thank you, YDACS!
Sincerely,
Evelyn
Evelyn has gone on to become an amazing young digital artist. You can even wear some of her 8th grade artworks by purchasing a t-shirt featuring one of her designs in our store.
One of the things we love the most is when our students integrate their digital art skills with other subjects. This is an excellent example where Evelyn used the digital art tools and skills she learned in her YDACS courses to illustrate a group parachute design for her physics class, all the way from brainstorming to the final design.
Micah, another of our outstanding Student National Fellows, started with DM101 and is now studying animation at Evergreen Valley College. Micah also teaches our DA101 and DA102 courses and has been researching and evaluating free and open source animation programs for possible future courses. This is what Micah said when he completed DM101 five years ago:
“Hello!
I finished DM101! This course was pretty awesome! I really enjoyed it! I liked how Inkscape works and how you can edit things by skewing and node control and you can import it into other programs! I can’t wait to start making animations! Thanks YDACS!”
Several years later, like Caleb and Evelyn, Micah is doing what he had hoped in his DM101 comments. This is an experimental animated GIF of an inkscape self portrait that he imported into Krita: a free and open source program he is researching and evaluating.
Mackenzie is another of our amazing Student National Fellows. When she finished DM101 nine years ago she said:
“I have finished DM101 I really liked learning how to make your art look better using nodes.
Thank you for a great course.
Mackenzie”
Gwee the dragon was one of Mackenzie’s DM101 works. Yes, Mackenzie, we still love your Gwee the dragon.
Mackenzie has gone on to become an incredible 3D modelling and animation artist. She is currently enrolled at Drexel University studying animation and visual effects Here is one of several posts in our blog featuring her works. You can click each image to scroll through larger versions in a slide show.
Each of these amazing emerging young digital artists began with an interest, a curiosity, or a passion for the digital arts. At www.YDACS.com we feed hungry young minds and grow digital artists.
You can give a young person the gift of exploring the digital arts and maybe even launch a career by enrolling them in any one of our three course tracks. You can download and print our our Fall 2018 Course Catalog, Quick Enrollment Guide, and Single Page Flier which includes a visual diagram of our three tracks.
Students can enroll in our courses at any time!
You can also fund a digital art scholarship for your favorite school or youth organization. Please let us know if you are interested or if you have any questions by by using our contact form at www.YouthDigitalArts.com or email us at info@YDACS.com.